Beanie killed us last night. She's been passing out around 9 PM, which is nice. I take her to bed with me. We sleep great. Until 1 or 2 AM when she wakes up and tries to do her rounds in the room or find her toys. Or she pounds and kicks on me or her dad until we wake up.

Last night I was so beat from only a few hours the night before and a bad backache, I begged her dad to take her into the living room. At some point he came back with her and thought she would sleep. No cigar. She was awake. I kicked them both out again. He's so exhausted. He can barely talk. I feel bad for him, but I need to get up early and go. It takes me fully 20 minutes in heavy traffic until I get to my secret commute street. Today I nearly crashed because I'm freakin' tired!!

Part of me thinks she needs a crib, but then how much sleep would I get if she screams from the other room? Not to mention, we live in apartments. My neighbors would be none too thrilled if that happened at 2 AM. I'm happy to continue sharing our bed until she's 6, but she has to SLEEP. She is NOT conforming to the Attachment Parenting/Cosleeping/No Schedule program. And it's kicking my ass right now. I need encouragement that it will "pass" soon, or that she's just in need of a "drink" in the wee hours...

Around 2:47 AM, she started calling out for "Juice". I woke him up brusquely, and Dad got it and I fell back to sleep. When I woke up around 6:30 AM, she was hot in her fleece sleeper. I unzipped it. By 7 AM when I got up, I knew she had a fever. When she actually woke up around 7:30 AM, I gave her some tylenol and got her a bottle of milk. By the time I headed for work, her fever had broken and she was sucking her bottle like she'd been sleeping in a desert.

I also looked up "getting toddlers to sleep" online. Most of those folks with good advice are not co-sleepers; they are talking about cribbed kids, so it doesn't apply right now. Most of the moms who are cosleepers don't work right now, so they are able to stay home with their late morning sleepy toddlers and can afford to stay up incredibly late. They talked about weaning. I have weaned her pretty much, except for her night night nunu and her early morning "nunu rape". She jumps me in her sleep when I'm sleeping and I often wake up with my shirt around my neck with her snugged up next to me. Actually, it could be me turning toward her in my sleep, but whatever. Weaning is probably not going to happen until she gets her own bed. But if she wakes up screaming, what do we do? I need my rest. I have TRIED to get her up early and to bed at a late enough time on the weekends, with enough napping to keep her fortified during my busy days with her. She's always pretty easygoing. It's the weekdays that suck ass.

We've always had a pretty good night sleeper. She has always been a light napper and a heavy sleeper, even as a tiny baby, minus some semi-colicky nights. She's always slept with us and until about 1 year old, didn't wake in the middle of the night more than just for a sleepy extra night nursing.

I'm going to keep a sippy cup full of water by the bed for her if she wakes up again. I will post if that helps us at all, because this has got to end.

I've never been a cranky sleeper, but I'm running full days of work/home life on about 4-5 hours, if that, a night. It's got me seriously moody. On top of that, I think my back is PMSing. Good for my hormones, bad for PF, who probably takes the brunt of my sleepy PMS aggravation. He's a good man. But my demand still stands: if the kid gets up, so does the parent who stays home. Period. PMS or no PMS.